In The Line Of Fire

Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005 By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE / NALCHIK
STREET FIGHTING: Russian special forces storm a shop where militant Islamist gun- men hold out
MAXIM MARMUR / AFP-GETTY IMAGES
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Some attackers probably got into the building, since at one point Russian snipers across the way took fire from the spot. Most of the men from the minibus soon retreated to a nearby souvenir shop, where they holed up with hostages. The area quickly turned into a battle zone. A guerrilla sniper took down four soldiers as they ran across the square, killing at least one. Another rebel was cut off and took cover in a car in the middle of the square; hours later, hotel staff watched as he leapt out and sprinted under covering fire to the souvenir shop.

While local forces called for more help to quell the assault, Moscow downplayed the drama. Four hours after the attack began, the Kremlin announced it was all over. But sporadic clashes erupted during the night, and the next morning, guerrillas were still inside the souvenir shop and held a police station. Eventually, a group of élite Russian Spetsnaz soldiers with gas masks and small grenade launchers edged along the side of the souvenir shop. Shortly before their assault, Russia's Deputy Prosecutor General, Vladimir Kolesnikov, stressed that women were being held hostage inside. "We have to act with surgical precision," he said. Under cover of heavy machine-gun fire, the Spetsnaz pumped round after round of grenades into the small shop. After half an hour, they abruptly ceased fire and slipped off as quietly as they came. Journalists were told the hostages had been saved, though no one could explain how they survived the barrage.

A look at the corpses on the ground showed the guerrillas were mostly in their early twenties, well-armed and generously supplied with ammunition. Security officials were stunned by something else, too. According to one fsb officer, "amazingly, they were all locals," many from the city itself. Though the attackers included a sprinkling of Chechen and Ingush fighters, security officials say most were from an Islamic guerrilla group called Yarmuk that only recently surfaced. The cell first called for jihad in August 2004, and gained some local prominence with small attacks later that year. After last week's violence ended, officials variously described the attack as an attempt to seize arms or even capture the city. The guerrilla teams were big enough to terrorize, but not to hold their targets. It was not clear whether any rebels made away with stolen weapons.

For the guerrillas, the Nalchik raid was a savage, politically successful piece of armed propaganda. Many of the fighters seemed ready to die, and many did, though the death toll is hard to gauge as both sides distort casualty figures. A government source, who wished to remain anonymous because his estimate deviates from the official line, thinks at least half the attackers were killed. He put the losses among police and troops at more than 30, with about the same number of civilian deaths.

Those who saw Putin that day say he was furious at news of the assault. He issued crisp instructions that anyone bearing arms in the city who resisted arrest should be "eliminated." But the Nalchik raid has forced the Kremlin to confront the fact that it is fighting a war on more fronts than just Chechnya. Despite regular announcements of major victories there, Russian forces are merely holding their ground. Now Putin, his forces already stretched thin, will have to mount defenses in other republics as well. Nevertheless, Russian leaders hailed a victory for federal forces in Nalchik and promised to clean up the city quickly. The physical scars may well disappear soon, though Nalchik — and perhaps the North Caucasus as a whole — will never be the same.